USA > Louisiana > The province and the states, a history of the province of Louisiana under France and Spain, and of the territories and states of the United States formed therefrom, Vol. IV > Part 35
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Treasurers : William Tholen, 1859 (enlisted 1861, H. R. Dut- ton appointed) ; William R. Spriggs, 1862; Martin Anderson, 1866; George Graliam, 1868; Josiah E. Hayes, 1870 (re-elected and resigned April, 1874; John Francis appointed) ; Samuel Lappin, 1874 (resigned Dec., 1875-Francis again appointed) ; John Francis, 1876; S. T. Howe, 1882; James W. Hamilton, 1886 (resigned March, 1800, William Sims appointed) ; S. G. Storer, 1800: William H. Biddle, 1892; Otis L. Atherton, 1894; David H. Hefflebower, 1896; Frank E. Grimes, 1898; T. T. Kelly, 1902.
Attorney-Generals: B. F. Simpson, 1859 (resigned July, 1861, Charles Chadwick appointed until election of 1861, when Samuel A. Stinson was elected to the vacancy) ; W. W. Guthrie, 1862; J. D. Brumbaugh, 1864; George H. Iloyt, 1866; Addison Danford, 1868; A. I .. Williams, 1870; A. M. F. Randolph, 1874; Willard Davis, 1876; W. A. Johnston, 1880 (resigned Dec., 1884, to go on the supreme bench, and George P. Smith appointed) ; T. B. Bradford, 1884; 1. B. Kellogg, 1888; John N. Ives, 1800; Jolin T. Little, 1892; F. B. Dawes, 1894; I. C. Boyle, 1806; A. A. Godard, 1808; C. C. Coleman, 1902.
Superintendents of Public Instruction: W. R. Griffith, 1859 (died February, 1862, S. M. Thorp appointed) ; Isaac T. Good- . now, 1862; Peter Mc Vicar, 1866; H. D. McCarty, 1870; John Fraser, 1871; A. B. Lemmon, 1876; H. C. Speer, 1880; Joseph H. Lawhead, 1884; George W. Winans, 1888; IFenry N. Gaines,
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1892; Edmund Stanley, 1894; William Stryker, 1896; Frank Nelson, 1898; I. L. Dayhoff, 1902.
Chief Justices : Thomas Ewing, Jr., 1859; Nelson Cobb, 1862; Robert Crozier, 1863; S. A. Kingman, 1866; A. H. Horton, 1876; David Martin, 1895; Frank Doster, 1896; W. A. Johnston, 1902.
Associate Justices : S. A. Kingman, 1859; L. D. Bailey, 1859; Jacob Safford, 1864; D. M. Valentine, 1868; David J. Brewer, 1870 (resigned April, 1884, T. A. Hurd appointed) ; W. A. Johnston, 1884; S. H. Allen, 1892; W. R. Smith, 1898; H. F. Mason, J. C. Pollock, A. I .. Greene, R. A. Burch and E. W. Cun- ningham, 1902.
United States Senators: James H. Lane, 1861; Samuel C. Pomeroy, 1861 ; Edmund G. Ross, 1867; Alex. Caldwell, 1871 (resigned March, 1873, Robert Crozier appointed) ; John J. Ingalls, 1873; James M. Harvey, 1874; Preston B. Plumb, 1877 (died December, 1891, B. W. Perkins appointed ) ; John Martin, 1893 (vice Plumb) ; W. A. Peffer, 1891; Lucian A. Baker, 1895; William A. Harris, 1897; Joseph R. Burton, 1901.
A hundred. years have passed away since Kansas first became a part of the domain of the American Republic. During the first half of that century, the explorers-from Pike to Fremont-placed Kansas upon the maps as part of the "Great American Desert." But the last half has shown the error of these early explorers, for the state has steadily risen from nothing in 1853 to the eighteenth in population in 1900. The "desert" has become a fruitful field. The Indian and the buffalo have departed, and in their places have come the linsbandman and his domestic flocks. Where the council fire of the savage once burned, the dome of the university lifts itself toward the heavens, a landmark of civili- zation. Nearly nine thousand miles of railroad traverse the plains that two generations since were unmarked by the foot of civilized man.
The people who settled Kansas believed in education. Sections sixteen and thirty-six of the public domain, that were set apart by congress for the support of the common schools, have devel- oped into a permanent school fund of almost three million dollars, and the end is not yet. The school property of the state was valued in 1901 at more than eleven million dollars. Over half a million of children of school age were enumerated, and seventy- five per cent of the enumeration were enrolled. Besides the dis- trict schools the state has 5 manual training schools, and 12
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KANSAS, PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE.
county, and 106 citv, high schools. The state normal school at Emporia had, in 1901, an enrollment of 2,034 students. This school property is valued at two hundred thirty-six thousand dollars, exclusive of lands, and has an endowment of two hundred seventy thousand dollars. At the state university 1,233 students were enrolled. The value of the buildings and apparatus at this insti- tution, not including the 62 acres of land constituting the cam- pus, is estimated at one million dollars. The university endow- ment is about one hundred fifty thousand dollars. The agri- cultural college enrolled 1,396. Of all the higher educational institutions in Kansas, this college has the largest endowment, amounting at present to four hundred ninety-one thousand dol- lars. The buildings and apparatus are valued at four hundred eighty-five thousand dollars.
It was a Kansas educational institution that gave to the farmers of the country a remedy for the chinch bug. The discovery of this remedy was due to Chanceller Snow of the state university.
In 1902 the property of the state was valued at eleven million dollars, the capitol alone being worth three million dollars. The receipts during the year amounted to three million five hundred ninety-five thousand dollars, and the bonded indebtedness of the state was but six hundred thirty-two thousand dollars, all of which was held by the school fund. Hence it may be said that Kansas is in sound financial condition. Reports from 607 banks showed a capital stock of more than sixteen million dollars, with individual deposits amounting to nearly one hundred million dol- lars, which is evidence that the people were fairly prosperous.
"Ad astra per aspera"-the motto upon the great seal of state, a motto selected by John J. Ingalls, then a young man, serv- ing as secretary of the state senate-is certainly appropriate. Kansas has had her struggles and her blessings. Many of the struggles of territorial days were really blessings in disguise, for they brought to the young commonwealth strong, self-reliant men, men who stood for convictions and who were ready to make sacri- fices for the general good. Such men make a great state; and Kansas was fortunate in having among her pioneers so many of that class. Along the line of the Santa Fe trail sunflowers sprang up as from the touch of the magician's wand. Wherever the plow of the husbandman disturbed the hitherto unbroken soil, the sun- flower cane to cheer him in his lonely sod-house or dug-out upon the prairie. The sod-house and dug-out have been replaced by more substantial and more pretentious dwellings, but the sunflower
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remained, and has been adopted as the floral emblem of the state. And a more appropriate flower could not have been found, for Kansas, while passing through the horrors of the border wars, the devastations of droughts and grasshoppers, has, like her floral emblem, kept her face toward the sun, confident that better days were coming. And by the exercise of this hopeful optimism she has surmounted all her difficulties, and risen to a proud position in the constellation of American States.
State of Colorado
Hon. Frank Hall Associate Editor
Colorado
CHAPTER I
Events Ante-Dating the Territorial Administrations
A S Francisco Vasquez de Coronado marched from Santa Fe, in the Spring of 1541, to find the country of Quivira and possess himself of its fabled wealth, he sent out small scouting parties at intervals to gather information regarding the object of his search. Others, becoming dissatisfied with the long, weary march across the plains, deserted the expedition and, choos- ing a leader, went into the business of exploring for themselves. One of these parties, consisting of twenty-five men, under the leadership of one Diaz, marched westward until they came to the Colorado river, which they descended to its mouth. Cardinas, another captain of Coronado's, with twelve men, discovered the same stream, at a point much farther north than that touched by Diaz. It is not likely that the main body of Coronado's expe- dition passed over any portion of what is now the state of Col- orado, unless it might be the extreme southeastern corner, but it is certainly possible that one or both the small parties mentioned crossed the state, and were the first white men to set foot within the present boundaries of Colorado. This is especially true of Cardinas who left the expedition later than Diaz, and after it had reached a point farther north. In his report he describes the river a: having "banks so high they seemed to be three or four leagues in the air." Some of the most active and athletic men in
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THIE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
the party tried to descend to the stream, but after toiling all day returned late in the evening, having accomplished about one third of the distance. They reported that the rocks lying at the bottom of the canon, and which, when viewed from above, looked to be about as high as a man were as "big as the cathedral of Seville."
Fifty years after Coronado a company of Spaniards under Juan de Onate established a settlement at Chama, in New Mexico. In 1595 Onate explored the San Luis valley and reported the find- ing of gold a short distance above Fort Garland, but if any attempt was made to establish a settlement there no record of it has been preserved.
About the middle of the Eighteenth century Cachupin was made governor of New Mexico. Reports reaching him of the mineral wealth of the mountains lying to the north he planned a number of expeditions to that region. What is now known as the San Juan country was explored by these expeditons, but as the precious metals conkl not be found in sufficient quantities to pay for work- ing the mines no settlements were undertaken.
In 1761 Juan Maria Rivera, accompanied by Don Joaquin Lain, Pedro Mora, Gregorio Sandoval, and a few others, reached the valley of the Gunnison river. During the next ten or twelve years several small exploring parties penetrated into the present limits of the state of Colorado, on both slopes of the Rocky moun- tains, in search of gold. It seems, however, their achievements were so evanescent that they have been deemed unworthy of more than a passing mention by the historian.
In response to the importunities of Padre Junipero Serra, pres- ident of the Catholic mission on the western slope, an expedition was organized in 1776 by Padres Francisco Escalante and Atana- cio Dominguez, church dignitaries of New Mexico, the object being to seek out an overland route from Santa Fe to the Pacific coast. The party consisted of ten men, and Don Joaquin Lain, who had been with Rivera fifteen years before, was employed to guide the expedition. Leaving Santa Fe July 29 they pursued a general northwesterly direction, crossed the southern boundary of Colorado in what is now Archuleta county, and August 5 came to the San Juan river. A number of streams and mountain chains were named by Escalante, and some of the names have been retained to the present day. After crossing the White river, near the place where it enters Utah, they turned west until they reached Utah lake. From there they pursued a southwesterly course past Sevier lake to within a few miles of the Colorado river when they gave up the idea of establishing an overland
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EARLY EVENTS IN COLORADO.
route and returned to Santa Fe. Although the expedition failed to accomplish the object for which it set out Escalante's account was the first to give a perspicuous description of the parks, streams and mountain ranges of Western Colorado.
In 1803 all that part of Colorado lying north of the Arkansas river, and east of a line drawn due north from the source of that stream, became the territory of the United States by what is generally known as the Louisiana Purchase. Three years after the acquisition of this territory General Wilkinson sent Lieut. Zebulon M. Pike to explore the country about the head waters of the Arkansas river, and if possible ascertain the sources of the Red river. Besides being charged with the duty of exploration Pike was entrusted with the safe return of a number of Kaw Indians whom General Wilkinson had rescued from a hostile tribe and had promised to restore to their people. Pike's company consisted of twenty-one white men and about fifty friendly Indians. He left St. Louis July 15, ascended the Missouri river in boats to the mouth of the Osage where he landed, purchased horses from the natives, and after delivering the Indian captives to their friends crossed the country to the Arkansas river. He ascended the Arkansas without adventure until November 13 when he first saw the dim outlines of the peak of the Rocky mountains that bears his name. An hour or so later the whole range came into view, the little cavalcade halted upon an elevated piece of ground, and the men gave "three cheers for the Mexican mountains."
Although it was late in the season Pike pushed on, but it was not until November 26 that he reached the base of the range. In his report he says of their day's march, November 17, "we marched with the idea of arriving at the mountains, but night found no visible difference in their appearance." On the 27th he, with Doctor Robinson, the surgeon of the expedition, and Privates Miller and Brown, started to ascend the peak. After considerable difficulty they reached the summit of the mountain known as Cheyenne mountain, and saw the great peak still towering far above them. Pike gave it as his opinion that no one would ever be able to reach the pinnacle of the mountain, which he described as being barren and snow-covered .*
Subsequent events showed, however, that Pike was mistaken. An expedition under Maj. S. H. Long, was sent out in 1819 by
" For a more conadeta account of Pike's expedition, his captivity among the Spaniards, ete., soo the first too volumes of this work.
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THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
John C. Calhoun, then secretary of war, "to visit and report on all the country drained by the Missouri, Arkansas and Platte rivers." Long passed the winter of 1819-20 at Council Bluffs. The next spring he ascended the Platte to the confluence of the north and south forks, arriving there a few days after the middle of June. Choosing the south fork he followed it to its source, reaching the South Park by an entirely different route from that taken by Pike fourteen years before. July 14, while the party was encamped near Colorado Springs, Dr. Edwin Jamies, with four men, started to ascend "the highest peak." Nightfall overtook them before they were near the top, but undaunted they camped upon the mountain side and early the next morning renewed the ascent. . By two o'clock in the afternoon they had reached such a height that the rarefied air compelled them to halt for a little while. A rest of thirty minutes was taken, at the end of which time Doctor James says they "arose much refreshed but benumbed with the cold." At four o'clock they stood upon the summit and Pike's prediction that no one would ever reach the pinnacle was shown to be without foundation .** After an hour at the top they began the descent. Again they were compelled to spend a night upon the side of the mountain, and though it was intensely cold they managed, by keeping up a good fire, to pass the night in compara- tive comfort, and to rejoin their friends, who were becoming a little anxious on account of the long absence.
Long's account of the region was anything but encouraging. He described all the country for five hundred miles cast of the Rocky mountains, from the 39th parallel to the British posses- sions, as being nothing but a desert of sand, unfit for cultivation, and therefore uninhabitable. It was this report that caused the great plains west of the Missouri river to be first marked upon the maps as the "Great American Desert," and there is little doubt that it retarded for many years the settlement of the country.
The year following Long's explorations a private expedition led by Hugh Glenn, an Indian trader, made the journey overland to the Rocky mountains, following the Arkansas river, and spent the winter in what is now the state of Colorado. A few years ago Dr. Elliott Cones, of Washington, D. C., came into possession of and published the journal of Jacob Fowler, one of the twenty men constituting the Glenn expedition. Fowler's grammar and orthography were not always exemplary, as the following extracts will show, but had the journal been published immediately after
** Mrs. James 11. Holmes, Angust 5, 1858, was the first woman to reach the summit of Pike's Peak. Since the completion of the raffrond up the mountalu hundreds visit the "pinnacle" every summer.
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it was written it might have done much to counteract the pes- simistic views of Major Long, for in some cases it gives rather glowing descriptions of the country. November 13, 1821, Fow- ler wrote:
"Seen a Branch Puting in from the South Side which We sopose to be Pikes first forke and made for it-Crossed and Camped in a grove of Bushes about two miles up it from the River We maid Eleven miles West this day."
The stream discovered at this time and designated as Pike's first fork was the Purgatory river. While the party were encamped there, one of their number, a man named Lewis Daw- son, was killed by a grizzly bear. Fowler gives an account of the fight with the bear, and of the death and burial of Dawson, who was in all probability the first American citizen to find a grave in Colorado. Ten days after the discovery of the Purga- tory river the journal contains an account of a council with the Tetan Indians. The chief was evidently disappointed at not receiving goods in the way of presents from the white men. Con- cerning this part of the council Fowler says :
"But When He Was told that there Was no Such goods He Became in a great Pashion and told the Conl" (meaning Colonel Glenn) "that He Was a lyer and a theef and that he Head Stolen the goods from His farther."
Trouble was averted by the timely arrival of a large party of friendly Arapahoes, and the expedition was allowed to proceed without molestation. In February, 1822, they were in the Huer- fano valley. A month later they were near the present site of San Juan City, and in June they were in what are now Las Ani- mas and Baca counties.
This expedition, and the opening of the Santa Fe trail two years later, attracted the attention of Indian traders toward the upper Arkansas valley. In 1826 the four Bent brothers, Will- iam, George, Charles and Robert, and Ceran St. Vrain, built a stockade on the north bank of the Arkansas, about half way between the present sites of Pueblo and Canon City. They soon discovered that they had located too far up the stream, and in 1828 moved to a point some distance below Pueblo. There they built a more pretentious fort, which was named Fort William after William Bent. Later it became generally known as Bent's "old" Fort. In 1852 this fort was blown up by William Bent, and the following year Bent's "new" Fort was established near where the town of Robinson now stands. The new fort was used as a trading post until 1850 when it was leased to the United
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States government, Bent removing to a new location just above the mouth of the Purgatory river. In 1860 the name was changed to Fort Wise, and after the battle of Wilson's Creek, Mo., August 10 , 1861, it was named Fort Lyon, in honor of Gen. Nathaniel Lyon, who was killed in that engagement. The fort was undermined by the wash of the river in the spring of 1866, and being deemed unsafe it was removed about twenty miles far- ther down the river.
A trader named Louis Vasquez erected a post, in 1832, on the Platte river at the mouth of Clear creek, then called Vasquez's fork. Not long afterward Fort Sarpy was established, five miles down the Platte from the Vasquez post, and not far from the present town of Henderson. Twenty miles farther down the river Fort Lancaster was built by Lupton, the place after- ward taking the name of the founder. Fort St. Vrain was located at or near the site of the present town of Platteville, and another post was established where Brighton now stands.
But trading posts were not settlements. With the disappear- ance or scarcity of fur bearing animals they were speedily aban- doned for more promising fields. One post, established about this time, partook somewhat of the nature of a permanent set- tlement. That was the post of El Pueblo, a few miles above Fort William. The buildings were arranged as those of the trading posts, but while the others were engaged in trafficking with the Indians, the occupants of El Pueblo devoted their time and energies to agriculture, raising vegetables and live stock to sup- ply the. trading posts. The soil was irrigated with water from the Arkansas river and for a time the little colony flourished. But as the ranks of the fur traders became decimated by the incur- sions of hostile Indians or by removal to other localities, it sank into insignificance. The place was visited by Fremont in 1844, who described the inhabitants as "a number of mountaineers, principally Americans, who have married Mexican women, and occupy themselves in farming and carrying on a desultory trade with the Indians." During the winter of 1846-47 some Mor- mon families were quartered at Pueblo, and several children were born there, but in the summer of 1847 they left the place and joined the main body of Mormons at Salt Lake.
Up to 1850 no military posts had been established within the present boundaries of Colorado. In that year Fort Massachu- setts was built on Ute creek, on the west side of the main divide, not far from the Sangre de Cristo pass. It was abandoned in 1857, the troops and stores being removed to Fort Garland. In
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1854 Lafayette Head, an American, established a colony of Mex- icans at Conejos.
The actual settlement of Colorado dates from the finding of gold within the present state limits, and there has been some controversy as to who is entitled to the credit of making the discovery. Mention has been made of the prospecting tours of Onate, in the San Louis valley, as early as 1595, and of the reports he circulated to the effect that he had found gold there. At some places in that part of the state the ground has the appear- ance of having once been mined, but the lapse of more than two centuries from Onate to the fur traders makes it difficult to say whether such places are abandoned mines or natural formations. While Lieutenant Pike was a captive at Santa Fe in 1807, he met a Kentuckian named James Purcell who showed nuggets of gold that he claimed to have found in the South Park. Pur- cell also vouchsafed the information to Lieutenant Pike that the Spaniards at Santa Fe had urged him to disclose the location of the mines, but, being an American and knowing that the ter-' ritory belonged to the United States, he had steadfastly refused. A Frenchman named Duchet claimed to have found gold dur- ing the palmy days of the fur trade, and numerous stories were told of hunters and trappers carrying nuggets of the precious metal around in their shot pouches during the thirties. In all these stories there doubtless was more or less truth, but it was not until after the discovery of gold in California that they were given credence.
The argonauts of 1849 and the years immediately succeeding, while passing through the Pike's Peak country, as Colorado was then called, seized every opportunity to prospect along the Platte river and its tributaries. A party of Cherokee Indians from Geor- gia, while en route to California, found gold in Cherry creek and other small streams in the vicinity. When they returned to Georgia they began to talk of organizing an expedition to the gold fields of the Rocky mountains. In this undertaking they were aided by W. Green Russell, a white miner of Dahlonega, Ga., and on February 9, 1858, the expedition left Georgia bound for Pike's Peak. When they reached the country of the Osage Indians some of the Cherokees became dissatisfied and aban- doned the expedition. Twelve white men under the leadership of Russell, and thirty Indians under George Hicks, a Cherokee lawyer, went on, and on the first day of June reached the place on Cherry creek where the former Georgia party had found gold. Along their trail the report spread that gold had been
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found at Pike's Peak, and in a short time other companies were on their way to the mountains. One of these parties was made up at Lawrence, Kan., and left that city in May. July 4, they celebrated the national anniversary near the present city of Pueblo, the first time that Independence day was ever observed on Colorado soil.
The Russell-Hicks party prospected along the Platte river six or seven miles to the mouth of Little Dry creek, but not find- ing gold in sufficient quantities to satisfy their desires, crossed the country to the North Platte and Green rivers. After about three months of wandering, they came back to try the deposits on Little Dry creek, and in a little while had washed out several hundred dollars' worth of gold dust. While they were thus engaged, the Lawrence party laid out a town where Colorado City is now located, and named it El Paso, because of the prox- imity to the Ute pass. After waiting for some time for purchas- ers of lots, and none coming, the town site was vacated and the company moved over to the Platte to about five miles above where the city of Denver now stands, where they laid out another town, naming it Montana. Here they built a number of cabins, but the young city failing to prosper, the company was disbanded.
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